Bosnia General Planning to Surrender to Hague Tribunal

Published: September 25, 2001

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sept. 24—
The commander of Bosnia's Muslim-led army in the first year of the 1992-95 war is to surrender to the United Nations war crimes tribunal at The Hague. The court has indicted him over the killings of Bosnian Croats in a southern village in 1993, his lawyer said today.

The commander, Sefer Halilovic, 49, now minister for refugees and social affairs in the Bosnian Muslim-Croat federation, will fly on Tuesday to The Hague, his lawyer, Faruk Balijagic, told Reuters.

Mr. Halilovic, who commanded the Muslim forces in the months when they suffered their worst defeats at the hands of the better-equipped and larger Serb and Croat armies, told BH Radio One here that he was not guilty of the accusations against him. He did not specify the charges in what his lawyer said was a secret indictment.

''There is no court that can convict me because I stood on the side of justice, protected all citizens of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina and acted in all situations like a man, that is like a soldier, respecting the Geneva Conventions,'' he said.

If brought to trial, Mr. Halilovic, who was a general, would be the seventh and the highest-ranking Bosnian Muslim tried at The Hague. The tribunal has indicted 70 people for crimes committed in the Bosnian war. About 40, including the former Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, and the former Bosnian Serb military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, are at large.

Mr. Balijagic gave no details of the precise charges against Mr. Halilovic but said they were linked to the massacre of 30 Croat civilians in Grabovica in September 1993. He said he believed that there were other outstanding secret indictments unrelated to that massacre.

Bosnian Muslims and Croats started the 1992-1995 war as allies against the Serbs but turned on each other in their own internecine war in 1993. In 1994, under strong pressure from the United States to unite against the Serbs, they joined again in the federation, which makes up postwar Bosnia together with a Serb republic.

Mr. Halilovic was born in the Sandzak region just south of Bosnia. Sandzak, which straddles Serbia and Montenegro, has a substantial Muslim population. Like many commanders on all sides of the 90's wars, Mr. Halilovic had been an officer in the old Yugoslav army. Before the war began, he helped organize Bosnian Muslim paramilitary units.

He became overall army commander in May 1992 and was replaced in mid-1993 and made army chief of staff. He soon fell out of favor with the Muslim leadership and left the army, at what was described as his own request, a month after the Grabovica killings.

Mr. Balijagic said Mr. Halilovic was in the area at the time of the massacre but did not have command responsibility for the operation. The lawyer said a secret police unit carried out the action with the intention of deepening the Muslim-Croat split. He added that the secret services and army had done all they could to put the blame on Mr. Halilovic, but little or nothing to investigate the crime.

After the war, Mr. Halilovic formed his own political party and became a leader of the reformist Alliance for Change, which took power from nationalists after the election last year.

The justice minister of the Muslim-Croat federation, Zvonko Mijan, said Mr. Halilovic was accused of ''command responsibility,'' the term used when commanders are held accountable for subordinates' actions.

Officials at The Hague followed their policy of not commenting before suspects are in custody.

Photo: Sefer Halilovic when he commanded Bosnia's army in 1993. (Reuters)